Tag Geography
As continents continue moving, study suggests effects on biodiversity
UW geoscientists have found that marine species tend to become more numerous when the continents divide, and to stabilize — maybe even decline — when continents congeal.
Hugh Iltis, UW’s ‘battling botanist,’ dies at 91
Passionate, articulate and informed, Iltis was opinionated, sometimes argumentative, but always a fearless defender of the natural world he revered.
New study examines where and how climate change is altering species
A new study shows how and where changing climate conditions could affect the communities of species in any given area. In…
UW–Madison map library pinpoints Sawyer County site of 1966 bomber crash
Staff at the Arthur H. Robinson Map Library at the University of Wisconsin–Madison used their resources to help track down the site where a 130-ton B-52 bomber crashed in the dark on Nov. 18, 1966, near unincorporated Hauer in Sawyer County in northwestern Wisconsin.
Moving moments: Our 10 favorite video stories of 2015
University Communications created these stories about the UW–Madison people, research and discoveries that made for a memorable year.
As the river rises: Cahokia’s emergence and decline linked to Mississippi River flooding
As with rivers, civilizations across the world rise and fall. Sometimes, the rise and fall of rivers has something to do with it. At Cahokia, the largest prehistoric settlement in the Americas north of Mexico, new evidence suggests that major flood events in the Mississippi River valley are tied to the cultural center’s emergence and ultimately, to its decline.
UW-Madison spinoff is big-time producer of specialty maps
If paper maps are dead, nobody has read the obituary to David Knipfer, owner and operator of Mapping Specialists, a 15-person business in Fitchburg that runs the gamut from paper to digital.
Buried fossil soils found to be awash in carbon
Soils that formed on the Earth’s surface thousands of years ago and that are now deeply buried features of vanished landscapes have been found to be rich in carbon, adding a new dimension to our planet’s carbon cycle.
Now you see it: Airplane images reveal sand dunes in heart of Badger State
Newly created laser images of central Wisconsin show fields of dunes, most of which have never been seen before, that were blowing in the wind as recently as about 11,000 years ago.
Charting a map library’s transition to the digital age
In stories, maps lead to treasure. But in real life, maps are the treasure. They reveal history, showing us how we once viewed our world, and help us understand the world as it exists now. And sometimes they hold mysteries of their own.
Knox, research pioneer in streams and soils, dies
Jim Knox, Evjue-Bascom Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, died at his home in Madison on Saturday, Oct. 6.
After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape
Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals - including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers - began their precipitous slide to extinction.
Sand dunes reveal unexpected dryness during heavy monsoon
The windswept deserts of northern China might seem an odd destination for studying the heavy monsoon rains that routinely drench the more tropical regions of Southeast Asia.